Home Alone
by RosalindHawkins
Summary: When Seto's away, look who comes out to play. The story of Mokuba Kaiba while his brother is out of town. Rated M for dub-con and graphic awkwardness, among other things.
1. The Incident

**Author Notes:** Written as a request. WARNING: Contains pedophilia (kind of; nothing too hardcore), non-/dub-con, underage drinking, anxiety, and angst.

* * *

 _Splash!_

The sound of the eleven-year-old child entering the water echoed repeatedly in the empty room, the sound waves behaving much like the water's waves, emanating out to the edges of the room before folding back on themselves and bumping into each other, obscuring the sound as it began to fade, the vibrations weakening the farther they went.

The sound of the younger Kaiba gasping for air echoed just the same, the sound going out and coming back without an answer, eventually fading in futility, just like everything else in his life.

 _"Seto, where are you going?"_

 _"I don't know who I am anymore. Take care, kid."_

 _"But Seto—!"_

Silence.

The conversation he'd had with his brother earlier that day echoed in his head, making Mokuba strike out against the water with more force than usual as he swam down the lane towards the opposite end of the pool. He knew that his brother loved him, but sometimes it was hard to tell, especially when he never said the words out loud. He would follow his only family to the ends of the earth if he was asked to, but that didn't mean he believed that Seto was perfect. He knew that the KaibaCorp president was an incredibly flawed human being.

 _Stroke, stroke, stroke._

With each hard blow to the surface of the water, Mokuba could feel his muscles extending, stretching, growing stronger. One day, he'd be strong enough to protect himself, to prove his independence and show that he didn't need to be protected. Maybe Seto wouldn't be so hard and cold if he hadn't taken so much upon his shoulders at such a young age. Maybe if he'd let Mokuba share in Gozaburo's beatings…

When he came to the far wall, he flipped underwater and pushed off of the wall with his feet, gliding through the water in a sleek streak of black and peach before he surfaced and began to stroke again. In order to prevent drag, his hair was tied back into a tight bun and he wore only a small black speedo. Being able to move quickly through the water was important to him, since he felt so powerless everywhere else. Too much happened beyond his control and without his consent that made him feel so impotent. Seto Kaiba was a leech who absorbed as much power into himself as he could possibly get, rendering his little brother—and everyone else around him—entirely helpless. He was doing to Mokuba exactly what had been done to him.

 _Kick, kick, kick._

The grey-eyed child was more like his elder brother than most people might think. No, he wasn't a diamond like Seto: brilliant, unbreakable, frigid, prismatic. He could turn a pittance to a fortune, multiplying the money as a crystal multiplied and scattered white light into rainbows. He was Rumpelstiltskin: everything he touched turned to gold, but he was too greedy for power to share any of it. Diamonds and gold… precious things paired with a precious person. Mokuba loved Seto, he really did, but he resented him too. Maybe it was only the foolish resentment of a precocious, barely-pubescent adolescent, but it was still well-grounded.

He wasn't a diamond like Seto, but he _was_ coal. If Seto were willing to apply a little pressure on him, offer him a bit of responsibility, he could handle it and make a name for himself in his own right instead of borrowing his brother's fame and fortune. He didn't have the parasitic need to control everything in his life, but he needed to control something. He needed his life to be his own.

Mokuba reached the far wall and repeated the flip-turn, pushing off even harder with his feet against the smooth concrete. With each armful of water he pushed out of his way, he felt better. It wasn't his fault that Seto protected him so stubbornly, insisting that everything fall on his own head: every time Gozaburo raised his fist, every time a gun was raised and pointed his way, every burden that came with being an older brother, functional father, former orphan, and corporation president. He repeated his laps with increasing speed, his thoughts drifting away from him in the water like the vibrations he sent shuddering through the water.

 _Beep, beep, beep!_

He finished his current lap and came to a halt at the edge, his small hands latching onto the ledge of the pool. He pushed the button on his waterproof digital watch to turn the alarm off.

"Master Mokuba, I brought you another towel, just in case you forgot again." The feminine voice that spoke was music to his ears. He looked up and smiled before hauling himself out of the water, sending another disruptive set of waves through the chlorinated water.

"Thank you, Suki." His voice was congenial and filled with relief as he accepted the towel from her. She was no older than his own brother, but you never could have guessed it. She was petite and youthful, not much taller than Mokuba himself, which made him feel more comfortable around her. She felt like less of his superior and more of a peer, but maybe that was also induced by the fact that she was an employee of the Kaiba family and he was a member of it.

"Anything for you, Master Mokuba," she answered with a bright smile.

"You don't have to call me 'Master,' I've told you that before," he reminded as he started to dry himself off and tied the towel around his waist. She simply nodded and picked up the towel that he had brought with him to the pool.

"Would you like me to dry your hair for you?" she asked, and he nodded, pulling the elastic hair-tie out of his raven tresses before sitting on the starting block and facing the water as she dropped the open towel onto his head and began to rub it rigorously.

"How's the speedo working for you?"

"Much better than my trunks. Thank you again. It was very thoughtful of you to get it for me."

"Well, I figured _someone_ would need to get it for you. Your brother certainly wasn't going to."

Mokuba couldn't argue with that: it was true, since Seto didn't even know that Mokuba liked to swim. He'd never cared enough to ask.

"He's… out of town right now."

"Ah, so that's why you couldn't sleep tonight."

"Yeah…"

She knew from experience that Mokuba only came to swim this late at night when his young mind was too troubled with tumultuous anxiety. Nothing caused him more anxiety than when his brother left. He was already distant enough when they lived in the same house, but when he left on business or did anything like that—Seto had no idea how much it distressed his little brother.

"I still think you should talk to someone about your anxiety, Mokuba," she said quietly after a brief lapse in their conversation.

"No, I can't do that," he answered hastily. "If I talk to a therapist, Seto will get the bill for it, so he'll find out that I'm talking to a therapist, and then he'll want to know _why_ I'm talking to a therapist, and if he finds out that I have separation anxiety, he'll feel obligated to tote me around on his business trips, which would annoy him because he'd certainly find me to be bothersome after a while, and I… I don't want him to be any more annoyed with me than he already is…"

"Well…" Suki sighed, sounding defeated. "At least let me give you something that will help you relax so you can get some sleep." She lifted the towel from his head, his hair mostly dry now, although it smelled strongly of the pool chemicals. Mokuba stood and they left the pool, her hand on his shoulder as she guided him to the basement.

"I've never been down here before," he commented nervously.

"Of course not, silly. This is Gozaburo's old wine cellar."

Mokuba stiffened at the sound of his step-father's name, half expecting his ghost to appear and punish him.

"Your brother never touches it, never bothers with it at all. He won't miss one bottle out of hundreds."

He didn't know that he should have stopped her, and perhaps that was Seto's fault for not teaching Mokuba pertinent life lessons. Was he blind to his younger brother's growth and age? Was he ignorant of the true passage of time? Perhaps.

Suki uncorked the bottle, poured the nearly-black liquid into two glasses and they shared the bottle of Chateau Margaux together. Glass after glass, they drank, the two lightweights becoming increasingly intoxicated with each sip. They laughed and talked, and Mokuba found himself more relaxed than he had been in a long time. Eventually, the bottle was emptied, and they were both more than merely tipsy as they sat giggling on a towel on the floor. They were both flushed and merry, and neither were thinking clearly, which must be why Suki kissed him and why Mokuba let her.

He should have said no then and there. A little nagging voice in the distant corners of his mind whispered to him that he should stop this before things got out of hand. Yet… he didn't. He was intrigued, curious. Things became a bit of a blur as they continued to kiss, female arms embracing the younger male possessively. He didn't know when or how Suki's clothes came off, but the next thing he knew, they were laying together on the towel, Suki's bright lips at the tender skin of his throat. He gasped as he felt her bite him, wriggling beneath her weight.

"Suki… Ah!" Her fingernails gathered his blood as she marked him with scratches.

"Sh, it's okay. You want this." Her sweet voice had turned syrupy and seductive, like the kind of candy so potent in sugar parents claimed it would rot your teeth. And what child could resist such temptation? They would never truly believe it could harm them until they saw it with their own eyes.

"I don't think…"

She silenced him with another kiss, but as she reached to pull down his speedo, he made one last attempt to stop this.

"No, I can't—"

"Do you always want to be treated like a child, Mokuba?" she whispered with a slur. "Or do you want to be a _man_?"

"I want to be a man," he answered meekly.

"Then let me give you what you want." She stripped him of his small swimsuit and pressed herself against him. He certainly wouldn't have allowed any such thing if he were sober. Mokuba scrabbled against the floor and reached for her shoulders to push her off, but she grabbed his arms and pinned them by his head, her grip tight enough to leave marks.

* * *

Pale sunlight drizzled into his room between the cracks in the curtains as he discovered the state of his body. His memory was a wide, white, wine-flavored blank that told him nothing of how he acquired the scratches or the bruises. The last thing he remembered of last night was swimming, and Suki drying his hair.

He buried himself under his blankets as he started to cry, the muffled sobs echoing into his bedroom, which felt just as empty as the indoor pool, just as empty as his heart, just as empty as his life.

Soon enough, though, he slid out from under the covers and dashed over to his closet, pulling on some clothes to remove the gross, itchy feeling that crawled across his skin. As he crept back to bed, he heard a knock on his door and a servant calling his name. He froze, then dashed over to the door and locked it before scurrying back to bed and hiding himself under piles of fabric.

"Leave me alone!" he shouted, much to the servant's dismay.

"Master Mokuba—"

"I don't feel well!"

"I'll send for the doctor." The sound of the servant's footsteps rapidly receding matched the pace of Mokuba's heart as panic set in. He didn't want to see a doctor. He didn't want to see anybody. Another rush of shoes outside his door as people approached and a buzz of concerned voices as they discovered the door to be locked. Someone rushed off to get the keys, and Mokuba couldn't think of anything to do that would effectively remove him from this situation. He couldn't escape through the window. Where would he go, after all? They were miles from anything, and they'd catch him long before he got close to any sort of refuge. He heard the door open and the rustling whispers that accompanied the entrance of several servants.

"Master Mokuba, what's wrong?" his nanny asked. She was a kind old lady who'd taken care of Mokuba ever since they'd been adopted, and while he liked her and thought better of her than other adults, he didn't trust her much more than he trusted any given servant in the house.

"I don't feel well—"

"We've brought the doctor—"

"Go away!" He held the blankets firmly in place as someone tried to pull them off of him. "I just want to be left alone to sleep."

More whispering followed that statement as they ceased trying to uncover him, and Mokuba strained his ears to hear what they were saying.

"Alright, we'll leave you alone, for now. Would you like us to bring you breakfast?"

"I'm not hungry."

It was a lie. Mokuba just felt so anxious and agitated that he doubted he'd be able to hold down anything he tried to eat.

In the end, they left him alone, as he requested, but he knew that his behavior would be reported to his brother sooner or later. He couldn't hide the truth forever.

Maybe that would be enough to make Seto come home. Mokuba couldn't help but cry at the prospect.

"Please, Seto," he whispered to himself among the sheets and tears and emptiness. "Please fix this somehow."


	2. The Confrontation

Mokuba could feel a knot forming in his stomach as he sat in the chair facing his brother's desk. This used to be Gozaburo's home office, and it hadn't changed much since then. The scent of cigar smoke had been scrubbed from the room, the crystal ash-tray removed, the outdated desk-lamp replaced, some of the books on the shelves interchanged for others, and a new desktop computer gracing the desk's dark wooden surface. All other changes were imperceptible to him.

Seto would be here any minute, and Mokuba gripped the edge of the chair so hard that his knuckles turned white. The chair had been placed in the middle of the room, making him feel like an island in a sea of shiny brass, dark walnut, and antique books. He was a child stranded in the adult world, a place he simply wasn't ready to be, yet circumstances had marooned him here, and he didn't know how to escape.

Of course the servants had found their way into Mokuba's room when he'd tried to lock them out, and of course they'd recognized certain signs on his body that he hadn't even known he bore. Of course they'd promptly informed his brother, their employer, of the child's state. Tipped off by the smell of his breath, they'd tested a urine sample and found that he'd consumed far more alcohol than they would have thought he could get his hands on. He'd fought them every step of the way, but he wore out quickly and was soon subject to their will.

Not that they'd hurt him or done anything wrong, he simply hadn't wanted anyone to touch him or look at him. He hadn't wanted to acknowledge or speak about that awful, empty evening forming a painful hole in his memory. He wanted to go on with his life and pretend nothing had ever happened just as much as he wanted to be hugged by his brother and told that everything would be okay. He doubted either wish would come true, though.

The door behind him opened, making him flinch. Mokuba seemed to shrink as his brother entered, closed the door, and walked around the chair to stand before it. His eyes narrowed as he watched his brother, appraising him with those icy eyes. He sat on the edge of the front of his desk and crossed his arms over his broad chest, Mokuba still staring at the floor.

"Look at me."

Mokuba held his breath as he obeyed, the knot in his stomach growing tighter, making him feel queasier. Seto's gaze was steady, and that made it hard for Mokuba to hold it. He knew what was coming next, but he still feared it.

"What happened?" His question was as cold as his command had been.

"I-I don't know," he whimpered breathlessly, dropping his eyes to his lap.

"Look at me, Mokuba."

He looked back at his brother, afraid and ashamed. His stern expression prompted the child to speak again without being prompted.

"I can't remember," he explained, swallowing hard as he tried to breathe normally, but couldn't.

Kaiba uncrossed his arms and took a piece of paper from his desk, taking a step forward as he held it out for his brother to see.

"Do you know her?"

Mokuba lifted his head and leaned forward a little to get a better look.

"Y-Yes, that's Suki. She's my friend."

"Apparently not." Kaiba put the paper back on his desk. "She's been missing ever since last week." Last week, when Mokuba'd had his... incident. "The police haven't found her yet."

"The police?" Mokuba gasped, looking up in shock. "Why are they—?"

"Because she took advantage of you and she needs to be punished," Kaiba explained slowly, looking irritated.

"But she's my friend!" Mokuba protested again, making his brother sigh, close his eyes, and pinch the bridge of his nose. He never thought that he would have to have this conversation with his little brother. Ever. The worst case scenario that he'd previously envisioned was that when his baby brother grew to be a teenager, he dated some skank who used him for his money and introduced him to drugs. He'd never conceived a scenario where his little brother was the victim of... _this_.

"She's not your friend," he repeated, dropping his hand from his face and crossing his arms again, giving the child such a harsh glare that he didn't dare protest. "She _hurt_ you and she needs to be punished by the law."

"How do you know it was her?" Mokuba challenged, wanting to defend the only person who'd been consistently kind to him.

"Everyone else is accounted for, and her absence implies her guilt." He didn't mention the vaginal fluids found on the towel she'd left in the wine-cellar. It was a condition of employment at the Kaiba mansion that the employee voluntarily surrender a DNA sample as well as their fingerprints. That precaution was proving to be quite useful in the current situation.

"But—"

"Why are you defending her?" Seto demanded suddenly, looking angry enough to make Mokuba whither. "What is so hard about this for you to understand?"

"She was nice to me." With his head ducked and his voice so low, Seto had to strain to hear him. He stepped forward and tugged his pants at the knees as he got down on one knee in front of the chair so that he could hear him better.

"Was she _nice_ to you when she got you drunk?"

"That was _my_ idea," Mokuba whispered, even though he couldn't say it with any degree of certainty.

"No it wasn't." His voice softened for the first time in the whole conversation. "You're better than that." He took a deep breath, trying to get back on task. "What _do_ you remember of that night, Mokuba?"

"I was swimming." He began hesitantly, his fingers fidgeting in his lap. "When I was done, Suki was there. She'd brought me a towel, because sometimes I forget to bring one with me." He swallowed hard, his breath coming in short, shallow gasps. "Then, we were talking, and then she took me to the basement, and... and..."

"Why did she take you there in the first place?"

"B-Because..." Mokuba gasped for air as he panicked. He didn't want to tell Seto that he got anxious when he left. He didn't want to make himself a burden to his brother. He didn't want—

"Breathe, Mokuba," Seto whispered as he put his arms around his little brother. "Breathe. You're not in trouble, I just need to know what happened."

The child threw his arms around his brother's neck and started to cry, sobbing so vehemently that he hiccuped with every breath he tried to take. Seto almost wished that he knew how to be kind, because then he would know what to say that would make these tears cease. He didn't want his brother crying. He didn't want him upset, but he didn't know how to make it stop. He just held him close, letting the child weep into his shoulder as he absorbed the elder teen's body heat.

"Why are you so upset?" He didn't mean it as an accusation, but it still sounded that way.

"B-Because, I-I don't w-want—" Mokuba was still hysterical, so Seto sighed and placed his hand on the back of his head, holding him close again. He could tell that it would take some time for him to calm down. That made sense. Mokuba was traumatized. Naturally he'd have a severe emotional reaction when trying to recall the trauma. Kaiba thought he understood, but he didn't, not really. He didn't understand the deep-rooted anxiety his little brother felt or how it had gotten there.

Finding this current position awkward and uncomfortable, Kaiba slid an arm under his brother and lifted him into his arms as he stood. Mokuba wrapped around him tightly and Seto began to slowly pace around the room, waiting for the hysteria to spend itself. Mokuba tried speaking again before he was ready to, but Seto hushed him. It could wait until he reached some level of composure. It could wait.

"She knows that... I get worried whenever you leave," he whispered at last, gripping the fabric of his brother's shirt in both of his impotent fists, but Seto didn't seem to care. "I can't sleep, I can't eat, I'm afraid that you won't come home." He was afraid of confessing these things even now. "And she told me that I should tell someone, but I said that... I didn't want to worry you." Kaiba could feel the way Mokuba shuddered as he breathed. "She wanted to... give me something to help me sleep."

"That was when she took you to the wine cellar."

"Yeah." Mokuba nodded a little, wiping his eyes on his brother's evergreen shirt. "I-I'm sorry, I can't remember what ha-happened next..."

"That's okay." Seto pat Mokuba's back, then carefully set him down. "You should have told me, though." He already needed to find a therapist for him since he was traumatized from last week. Asking the therapist to help Mokuba with his separation anxiety was a simple task.

"Are you mad at me?" Mokuba asked meekly, rubbing at his red eyes with his small hands.

"No, Mokuba, I'm not mad. Just be more careful in the future. Don't be so quick to trust people."

Mokuba nodded in obedience.

"And don't go anywhere alone with people at night. From now on, you're not allowed to wander around the house after nine."

"Yes, Seto."

"Good. You need to give your statement to the police now. You're not in trouble, they just need to hear from you what happened. Okay?"

"Okay."

If Seto ever got his hands on the girl that had raped his little brother, he'd probably kill the girl himself. That was why he'd sent the police after her instead. He wasn't like Gozaburo, he told himself. He didn't eliminate his enemies through such dirty methods. Besides, it was now clear that Mokuba needed more protection than he'd previously realized, and if he was arrested for murder, how could he safeguard his family from any other predators?

Besides, child molesters were most hated by prison inmates. She wouldn't survive half a year in prison, and he did derive some satisfaction from that fact.


	3. The Talk

"I'm flattered that you trust me that much, sir, but with all due respect, I think it would sound better coming from you," Roland said calmly, only his sidelong glance betraying his fear of Seto's reaction to his insubordination.

"I'm busy with work," Kaiba snapped, striding purposefully towards his office as he waved a manila folder in the air rather dramatically. "See? Work." He would normally be at the KaibaCorp HQ on a Thursday, but in light of Mokuba's recent experience, he'd decided to work from home that day, so that he could be close at hand should his brother need him. Tomorrow, of course, he'd be back at his office, Mokuba with him since apparently he couldn't safely be left home alone with the staff.

"I work too—"

"You work for me, which means you do as I say." Seto came to an abrupt halt and turned on his heel to face his right-hand man. "And I'm telling you to go talk to Mokuba about… things." He waved his empty hand with the ambiguous word, not wishing to specify what exactly he wished Roland to discuss with Mokuba. He'd already said it once, he didn't need to say it again.

"I think it would sound better coming from his family member," Roland said boldly, standing his ground against his young employer. "As opposed to a disconnected stranger."

"You're not a stranger, he knows you." Kaiba turned around to continue walking away, but Roland's voice stopped him.

"I won't do it, sir. It's your responsibility as his guardian. The only way to make sure he learns the right things is to teach them to him yourself."

"Fine," Kaiba muttered before pushing open the door to his office. An hour later, he was scowling at half a dozen parenting books, criticizing most everything they said even as he sought some kind of guidance from between their front and back covers.

"'Don't try to fit it all into one talk'—Ha! Watch me do it. I'm a master of efficiency," he muttered, glaring at the pages before him. "'Let them know that you went through awkward experiences when you were their age'—Yeah, no way that's gonna happen. That wouldn't even help in this situation. 'Talk to them about your own sexual experiences'—What?! No. Never. No. This is useless."

He tossed the book he currently held into the bottom drawer on the left side of his desk, where he kept such materials for emergency situations like this one. He'd only purchased them a few months ago, when it dawned on him that Mokuba was growing close to the age of puberty. He hadn't actually imagined needing to talk to his little brother about the horrors of hormones so soon.

* * *

"So..." Seto said, sitting on the edge of the bed with his little brother beside him, looking curious. "We need to talk."

"Am I in trouble?"

"Why do you always ask that?"

"Because you're always in a bad mood."

Kaiba sighed, and said, "No, you're not in trouble."

"Then what do we need to talk about?"

"Sex."

"Oh."

They both sat there with flushed faces.

"Do we have to?"

"Yes."

"But that's gross!"

"I know it is, but I'm responsible for you, and it's my job to make sure that... that never happens again, so—"

"To make sure what never happens again?" He sounded genuinely ignorant, making Seto wonder about his little brother's self-awareness.

"Do you even realize what happened to you Mokuba?"

Mokuba blinked up at him, opening his mouth for a moment before closing it again, starting to sense that he didn't know as much as he thought he did.

"You were pressured into intoxication, then you were sexually assaulted. Do you understand what that means?"

The intensity with which Seto spoke made Mokuba sober up. "No…?"

"You were violated and manipulated in a degrading way, and we're having this discussion so that it never happens again."

"So it _was_ my fault?" Mokuba looked upset, and Seto tried not to sigh with frustration.

"No. You didn't cause this, but just because you don't cause it doesn't mean you can't stop it. Okay?"

"Okay." Mokuba stared at the floor as his cheeks turned a bright scarlet.

 _Trust me, kid, this is worse for me than it is for you,_ Seto thought as he took a deep breath, trying to get through this as quickly as possible. As he started to speak, neither of them were looking at each other, which made it slightly easier, but only slightly. Kaiba tried to explain things in the simplest terms, so that his brother was sure to understand.

"The next time someone offers you alcohol, you have to say no. Do you understand why that is?"

"Because it's illegal?"

"And because it's bad for you. It's poison that makes you sick and makes you incapable of clear thought which allows you to be taken advantage of."

"And that's why _you_ don't drink, right?" Mokuba said slowly, starting to think that he understood all of this. He knew that Seto placed high value on his own mental acuity.

"Yes, _that_ ,and it would also be illegal if _I_ drank, because I'm not technically old enough to do that," Seto pointed out, rolling his eyes a little. It was embarrassing that he was old enough to run a company and attend ritzy cocktail parties, but not old enough to sip champagne with the other fat corporate cats _at_ those parties. "Bottom line is, if someone offers you alcohol again, you say no and you walk away. Got it?"

"Got it."

"If someone tries to get you alone somewhere, especially if they're a stranger, you say no and find a trusted adult like Roland or myself—"

"But didn't you just say that you're not legally an adult yet?"

"For these purposes, I count as an adult." Kaiba suppressed the urge to roll his eyes again. "If that happens," he continued. "You find a trusted adult, like Roland or myself, and tell them what happened. Got it?"

"Got it."

"And if someone tries to touch you in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable," Kaiba continued, staring at the ceiling as his brother's face crinkled in repulsion. "You should immediately tell them to stop. And if they try to show _you_ anything that makes you feel uncomfortable—"

"Okay, okay, I get it," Mokuba interrupted, his hands clamped over his ears. "You can stop now."

"Are you sure you get it?"

"Yes!"

Seto sighed. Good. He didn't _want_ to finish the speech he'd accidentally memorized from the parenting book. God, he felt old.

"Is… that it?" Mokuba asked hopefully, starting to lower his hands from his head.

"Just—read this book," he said, pulling the puberty-themed paperback out from where it'd been tucked into his waistband at his back. "And if you have any questions then..." Kaiba threw up his hands in defeated exasperation. "Ask Roland."

With that, he stood and left his brother to look at the volume curiously, reading the title aloud: "What's Happening In My Body."

"I'm never having kids," Kaiba growled to himself as he walked back to his office to continue working. "Not in a bloody million years."

* * *

The next day, Mokuba had his first session with the therapist, which, according to the latter, went well, whatever that meant. Seto'd scheduled more appointments for him as recommended and didn't give it anymore thought. He resumed working as usual, until on Sunday, he was working from again and was interrupted.

There was a knock on the door, and Seto called for whoever it was to enter.

"Mr. Kaiba, sir," Roland said as he stepped inside, followed by Mokuba. The man's face was red and the child's face was innocent.

 _Good lord, what is it this time?_ Seto almost said it aloud, but he bit his tongue and asked instead, "What seems to be the problem?"

"Your brother had some questions that I think you would be best equipped to answer," Roland explained, his embarrassment and annoyance veiled, but still detectable.

"The books say to appoint a surrogate," Kaiba said in a dead-pan tone. "You're the surrogate. Congratulations." Roland was the only one who knew that Seto even consulted parenting books. He'd caught the teen with them when they'd first arrived in the mail, and Kaiba had made it clear that he was to keep this information to himself.

"I really think that—"

"You have kids, don't you?" Seto interrupted, doing everything possible to avoid answering whatever strange questions his little brother had. "This should be easy for you."

"My children are three and five years old." Usually, Roland obeyed Kaiba without question. But now that his employer was trying to make him responsible for the younger Kaiba's sex education, he knew that he had to draw the line here.

"Then consider it practice for the future." Kaiba made another to dismiss them both, but this also failed.

"You don't even know what his question is, sir."

Seto sighed heavily and lifted his eyes from his computer monitor. "What's your question, Mokuba?"

The child opened his mouth, and Roland took advantage of the moment to slip away, making Kaiba grit his teeth in frustration.

"Um, well," Mokuba began, looking a bit abashed. He hadn't meant to make such a fuss. "I was just curious about the first time you had sex."

Kaiba's eyes rolled back so that he stared at the ceiling for a moment before— _Thump!_ —he slammed his forehead onto the surface of his desk with enough force to worry his younger brother. He just stayed there, facing the wood as a low growl sounded in the back of his throat, and after a few moments, Mokuba tip-toed over to his older brother and poked his shoulder.

"Seto? Are you okay?"

Seto didn't hear him though. He was too caught up in his own thoughts. He was too young to be explaining these things to his brother. He was only sixteen. Shouldn't _he_ be the one receiving awkward conversations from his parents about always using protection? Parents. He'd had those once, hadn't he? What would his life be like if they were still around? He allowed himself a single moment of indulgence to fantasize about a life where he and Mokuba had never been orphaned: He'd be acing his classes in high school. He'd have a girlfriend. He'd have a best friend, and a friend group. He'd go to prom. He'd do all the normal things that normal teenagers did.

He finally sat up and rubbed his aching forehead with one hand. He wasn't ordinary, he was extraordinary. Extraordinary intelligence, extraordinary circumstances, and extraordinary awkwardness.

"Why are you suddenly curious about that, Mokuba?" he asked, finally looking at his little brother once more. "On Thursday, you thought this was gross, so why do you want to talk about it _now_?"

"The book helped make it less weird, but I still have questions about things," the child answered sheepishly.

"Why are you asking _me_ about this?"

"Well, I asked _Roland_ because I was wondering what was a normal age to start doing that," Mokuba explained, staring at the floor as he rocked on his feet.

"Then you should have just asked him that," the brunette snapped. _Then maybe he would have answered you and we wouldn't be in this situation._ "The normal age is 35," he lied, wanting this particular subject matter to be dropped from their conversations for the next decade at least. "Is that all?"

"That doesn't sound right." Mokuba frowned, puzzled.

"We can talk about this when you're older." He desperately hoped he wouldn't need to. "The book should have told you everything that you need to know right now."

Mokuba hesitated, then said quietly, "I'm too young for that kind of thing to happen to me, aren't I?"

Kaiba sighed heavily and nodded. "Much too young."

"I still can't really remember all of what happened."

"You'll probably never be able to remember it, so don't hurt yourself trying."

Mokuba rocked on his feet a little more. "I remember that she kissed me."

 _Goody for you._

"I'm too young for that too, aren't I?"

"Yes, you are."

"How old were you when you had your first kiss?"

"Gee, I don't know, but I'll tell you when it happens." His words dripped with irritation and sarcasm so potent even Mokuba detected it and realized that he'd annoyed his brother as much as he'd been afraid of doing. "Is there anything else you need to know?"

Mokuba shook his head.

"Then leave so I can work."

Mokuba trotted out of his brother's office. When the door closed behind him, Seto sighed and dropped his head into his hands.

 _Too young, indeed..._


End file.
